> On Jan 17, 2017, at 5:00 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > CG: Logically that then has a beginning and end to the symbol. > > Definitely not so acccording to the logic of CSP. - You are using some other > kind of logic, according to which symbols do not grow - on the ground of > communities, not just by individuals.
Again I tried to clarify the issues and narrow what I was speaking of. But of course communities end as well. (Beginnings of communities are a bit more open ended of necessity of course) The question is really whether one is able to do a more narrow logical analysis or only this open sense of the symbol in the totality of the universe. I certainly don’t disagree with what you say regarding the later. That is the symbol in its universal sense. But in terms of logical analysis that’s not the only analysis we can do. > You seem to be blocked by (late) modern individualism. Human individuals do > not just (clinically) die, they leave a legacy. At lest to those near and > dear. Certainly and I tried to make clear that sense is always at work. However what you may be attempting to say is that we can only speak of symbols in this universal sense. Which seems problematic. (I may be misreading you here - I hope you clarify) > On Jan 17, 2017, at 7:38 AM, John F Sowa <[email protected]> wrote: > > JLRC >> yes, similar principles hold for mathematics, although the >> “wavelength" is a tad longer and the “amplitudes" are shallower. > > Yes, but mathematicians never assume that any terms have universally > accepted definitions. They never say "set theory" by itself. > Even the qualifications ZF or VNBG in front of "set theory" are > not sufficient. In any publication, mathematicians have to be very > specific about the slightest details of notation and punctuation. But it seems to me that the fact mathematicians are more careful about context brings with it limits on the symbol. We have to be able to explain the role and function of this limiting move. > But we can never assume that the words in one document have precisely > the same "meaning" as the same words in another document. Differences > in the instruments used, the human procedures, the methods of gathering > data, and even the time of day can affect the "microsenses”. Exactly. Indeed Derrida’s moves that caused so much annoyance and consternation were playing with exactly this point. He discovered this feature of symbols being grafted into new contexts after his time studying Peirce’s (then) unpublished writings. But the fact there is this unescapable play due to how contexts shift and are ultimately uncontrollable doesn’t mean we can’t speak of more limited contexts. That is often our attempts to limit succeed. > CG >> My own position is that of course connotations can go wild >> and symbols grow in these unwanted ways. That doesn’t mean we >> can’t talk of more limited symbolic generals from a logical >> perspective. > > I agree. But it's a matter of degree. As we can see, science > and engineering do succeed -- eventually. But there have been > many, many communication failures along the way -- and dead > bodies as testimony. Certainly. What I worry about is that the postmodern error was focusing on these ‘errors’ to the exclusion of all else. There’s certainly many ways this errancy is important theoretically. I just worry that it has to kept balanced with the fact that signs often succeed. Indeed if anything its shocking how well communication does work and how often we do appear to arrive at truth.
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